India has sent a formal request to the Nepal government to allow its team of scientists to re-measure the world's highest peak, Mount Everest.Nepal's foreign ministry official has confirmed that they had received a proposal from the Indian side more than a week back.

India has sent a formal request to the Nepal government to allow its team of scientists to re-measure the world's highest peak, Mount Everest.

Nepal's foreign ministry official has confirmed that they had received a proposal from the Indian side more than a week back.

"India's ministry of external affairs has sent us a proposal regarding the measuring of Mount Everest. We are looking into it," said Shankar Bairagi, Nepal's foreign secretary, who has recently finished his India tour and returned to Kathmandu.

The re-measuring job is to be carried out by Asia's oldest scientific institute the Survey of India. Around 30 scientists and expert mountaineers are geared up for the historical event.

The project is expected to cost around Rs 5 crore. According to the Surveyor General of India Dr Swarna Subba Rao, who is spearheading the programme, the entire process will take no more than six weeks. "With modern gadgets and a highly experienced scientific team, this entire process would not take more than four to six weeks," he said.

According to Dr Rao, they want to carry out this expedition in the month of May. "Our scientists need some conditioning and some training on climbing, which we are providing. Now everything depends on the clearance from the Nepal government," he added.

There was a long standing debate over the height of Mount Everest. The official overall height of Everest is designated as 8848 meters (29,029ft). The last measuring was done by the Survey of India in the year 1956.

But China and Nepal have had a long-running disagreement over the height. The Chinese measurement found the height of its peak a bit shorter. So the Nepal government wanted to settle the issue once and for all by re-measuring it.

The urgency for re-measuring Mount Everest is prompted by the new satellite pictures of it doubting that the peak has shrunk after the 2015 Nepal earthquake. Though many scientists disagree with this.

According to the foreign secretary of Nepal, they have not received any other proposal of re-measuring the mountain peak from any other country apart from India.

The Surveyor general of India is hopeful and said, "Nepal being our friendly country, we are sure that very soon we would get a go-ahead from Nepal and begin our historic venture"

Do You Like This Story? Awesome! Now share the story Too bad. Tell us what you didn't like in the comments